Looking for wines with power, heft

At last the endless, steamy summer subsides. Cooler weather comes. In the South, it means temperatures in the 70s, down a full 10 degrees from that cruelest month of August. In northern climes, leaves turn, fall, and the eagerly anticipated snow appears.

This is the good time. Time for hearty meals and hearty wines. No more low-alcohol whites or nouveau reds with ice cubes slipped in when nobody was looking. No more sugary, fruit-laced sangrias.

No more microwaved meals and tuna-salad dinners because we couldn’t take the heat and so got out of the kitchen. We look forward now to beef roasts and stews, with gravy, briskets braised forever, macaroni and cheese with truffle oil or chunks of lobster, thick salmon chowders, habanero-laced chili, made with real ground beef, none of that turkey.

With this we want our white wines opulent, lush and hearty, like Cambria’s chardonnay, concentrated and scented from 12 months of aging in expensive new French oak barrels. We want honeyed, almost viscous whites like Cline Cellars Rhone-Valley-style blend of marsanne and roussanne.

In our reds we want power and concentration. We want “Carnivor” winery’s hefty cabernet sauvignon, with petite sirah added for extra backbone and merlot added to smooth rough edges.

We want McKinley Springs syrah, so muscular they add a bit of zaftig white viognier grapes to soften its grip.

We want body-and-heart-warming cold-weather wines. Even if, in some parts of the country, we have to turn the AC down all the way to drink them.